Kittiwake

Get in touch

Email support@khangazun.com. The link opens a message with a short template; the topic's keywords and question help us see what happened.

Common questions

What does the signal mean?

The signal is a number from 0 to 100 for each day: how strongly that day's stories point to the answer your question is watching for (the signal name, such as "Backlash" or "Delay"). Stories that point the other way pull it down, and off-topic stories are left out. The line shows the last eight weeks, and the dashed line is your alert score.

How do I write a good question?

Keep it to one thing that can grow or shrink, such as "Are flight delays on the rise?", and give two to four keywords that news headlines would use. Add excluded words for stories that share a keyword but are about something else. The starter watches are good examples to copy.

My topic finds no stories.

Try fewer or more common keywords, choose "any keyword" rather than "all keywords", and check the topic's languages. Kittiwake looks at the last two days of news, so a quiet topic can be empty for a while. If one source fails (for example, a busy news service asks it to wait), the others still work; Kittiwake tells you only when it could reach none of them.

My alerts do not arrive.

Alerts are off until you switch them on in a topic's editor; Kittiwake asks for notification permission at that moment. If you declined, allow notifications for Kittiwake in your system settings (and check that a Focus mode is not silencing them). On iPhone and Android the system decides how often background checks run, so an alert can arrive later than the story; opening the app checks right away.

What is Basic mode?

On the Mac and iPhone, Kittiwake scores stories with Apple's on-device model when your device has it. Basic mode scores by keywords instead: faster, and available everywhere, but it writes no summaries. Kittiwake for Android always scores this way.

Can I add my own news sources?

Yes: add any RSS or Atom feed address (https) in the Sources settings. Kittiwake reads it alongside Google News and the GDELT news database, and you can switch Google News or GDELT off.

How do I share a watch with a friend?

On a topic's page, choose "Send this watch to a friend". The link holds the topic's name, question, signal name, keywords and alert score, and nothing else. When your friend opens it, Kittiwake shows everything in it and asks before adding the watch.

The widget shows nothing.

The widget shows what the app saved after its last check. Add a topic, let Kittiwake check it once, and the widget fills in.

Do my topics sync between devices?

Not at the moment. Each device keeps its own topics. A watch link is the quickest way to copy a topic to another device.

Something looks wrong.

Please tell us the topic's keywords and question, the device and what you expected. A screenshot helps.